An off-again, Paula Zahn-again tale

Television journalist Paula Zahn attends the 20th Annual Power Lunch For Women To Benefit Citymeals-On-Wheels at the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center.

(Agostini/Getty/Getty Images)

Sunday, April 5, 2009, 11:07 AM

TV news princess Paula Zahn risked everything when she surrendered to a passionate affair with Paul Fribourg, billionaire friend of her husband, Richard Cohen. But things have turned out a little differently than any of them may have expected.

Zahn found herself at the center of a summer scandal in 2007 when we revealed that the gorgeous former CNN anchor had been spilling her innermost feelings for the married Fribourg into a secret journal. Cohen was crushed when he discovered what came to be known as Zahn’s “love diary.” Friends of Cohen, who’d been married to Zahn for 20 years, branded her confessions “shocking” and “lurid.”

Friends of Zahn said she’d fallen for Fribourg only after she and Cohen had lived separate lives — without sex — for almost a year. Zahn’s pals said the multimillionaire real-estate developer banished her from their Fifth Ave. apartment — just as he’d evicted beloved red-tailed hawks Pale Male and Lola, which had once nested above the building’s door.

Zahn hit Cohen with a lawsuit, demanding that he give her an accounting of the $250,000 she’d given him to invest. She then turned for comfort to Fribourg, chairman of the ContiGroup Companies. Fribourg was in the process of divorcing his own wife, Josabeth. With Zahn decamped in a full-floor apartment on E. 76th St. (said to rent for $40,000 a month), Fribourg moved into a suite at the Four Seasons. By Valentine’s Day last year, he and Zahn felt safe enough to step out at Le Cirque.

Meanwhile, Cohen’s lawyers sneered in Manhattan Supreme Court that Zahn was “continuing her journey through Wonderland” by claiming she didn’t know what Cohen was doing with her money. Seeking to dismiss her suit, Cohen’s attorneys called her action a “ruse” to gain an advantage in their inevitable divorce.

As the months passed, things weren’t going as well for Zahn with Fribourg, and friends say they grew apart. After spending almost a year at the Four Seasons, he moved back in with Josabeth.

Zahn? She called off her lawyers. “She told them she was going to try to talk to Richard directly,” says a friend. “I think they began to see that none of this was helping their children.”

Though she still hosts PBS’ “Sunday Arts” and has a deal with the Discovery Channel, Zahn now has much more time to spend with them than in her CNN days. “She and Richard have been going to school events together,” says a source. “They’re getting along much better.”

Zahn hasn’t moved back in with Cohen, but Cohen’s rep says, “There is no divorce lawsuit pending. He has said she was always a good and caring mother.”

Boies says, “It’s a total cease-fire. It’s the right thing to do. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes a little bit of litigation before people realize that.”